


A Better Me

by bossbeth



Series: Tumblr Scraps [3]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Pre-Relationship, exploring some reasons why people don't want kids, mega not a baby fic, not a baby fic, not angst, opposite of a baby fic, trigger warning: vague reference to pregnancy termination
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-08-19 16:27:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16538120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bossbeth/pseuds/bossbeth
Summary: Kara and Lena discuss having children, and surprise each other with their answers.





	A Better Me

**Author's Note:**

> An anon prompted me to write about Kara and Lena discussing babies, and the thing is, I have a very different head canon than most! Head's up, this is not a baby fic - this noodles around why neither of them would want kids. You know, like a good fun time. But it's not angst, I promise!

Kara hated being late. Lena was always unfailingly kind about it - she understood that Kara’s duties weren’t big on schedules or time tables. But ultimately, Lena made time for Kara, and time was her most precious resource. Once, Kara had seen Lena’s calendar - an inscrutable, multi-colored chart, triple- to quintuple-booked on average, all nimbly spun and triaged based on the needs of the moment. To see a chunk of time set aside blocked out for nothing but LUNCH WITH KARA was special, and she wanted to treat it with the gravity it deserved.

Kara gave her friend the largest, most apologetic smile she could manage as she plopped next to Lena on a park bench. “I’m so sorry, Lena, that took a lot longer than I anticipated.”

Lena peered into the sack Kara had placed between them. “I’ll forgive you if you got me extra slaw.”

“Please, I’m a super hero, I always come through with extra slaw.” Kara began to unload the bag - thankfully the best sandwich shop in National City had excellent vegan options, and didn’t think twice when Kara ordered a quantity of five footlong philly cheese steaks.

As Lena carefully plucked a soy curl from the top of her sandwich, she eyed her friend thoughtfully. “How’s Alex doing?”

Kara blew out her breath in a raspberry. “Alex is holding up ok. But adoption sucks.”

Lena nodded. “It’s a hell of a process. Did this round of meetings go okay?”

“I think so,” said Kara, wiping cheese from the corner of her mouth. “But we thought the last two meetings went well, too.”

“Did you look into that organization I referred you to?” Lena’s tone was casual, but she stared at her sandwich with an intensity that betrayed her interest. Kara had researched the non-profit Lena had told them about - dedicated to helping qualified people through the complexities and frustrations of the adoption process. It hadn’t taken much digging for Kara to learn Lena had been funding it for years.

Kara smiled at her selfless friend. “Yeah, it’s been amazing. Alex is excited, but it’s all so daunting. Thankfully the lady who’s helping her case is really amazing.” Kara took another bite and spoke around a mouthful of onion. “And Alex has a little crush on her, which makes it easier.”

“Cuties make miles of paperwork a lot more tolerable,” said Lena, wiping her hands on a paper napkin. “I’m pretty sure it’s part of their mission statement.”

They ate their sandwiches, content in each other’s company. Their bench was near a playground, and a gaggle of children were playing, supervised by an attentive and only lightly frazzled teen.

Kara was halfway through her second sandwich when the question was loud enough for her to voice it.

“Do you want kids?”

Lena’s answer was immediate.

“No.”

Kara was a little taken aback. The children’s hospital, the adoption non-profit - it all seemed to point to a kid-friendly view of things. She repeated the word with a mouth full of bread. “No?”

Lena smiled, though her eyes were expressionless. “Not for me.” She eyed her friend blankly. “What about you?”

Kara bought herself some time by chewing. “Honestly… it’s not really something I have put a lot of thought into.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Like, on Krypton, it’s all sort of abstract, right? It’s not a part of…” she scrunched her nose. “Romance, like here. Or even sex. So it wasn’t part of my concept of my identity. I was mostly thinking about astronomy at the time, honestly.”

“Stars are pretty great,” said Lena, staring at her friend.

“And here, on earth, it was presented with a lot of… like, don’t have sex, don’t get pregnant, babies will ruin your life until you’re married and blah blah blah. And it was all alarming. But also, frankly, I assumed from the jump that physically, I probably couldn’t.” She dusted her hands on her pants. “So it felt kind of moot.”

“Do Kryptonians not have the biological impulse?” Lena’s expression remained unreadable. “That’s all very intellectual, Kara. We’re not talking about what you were told. We’re talking about what you want.”

Kara huffed her breath out again. “I’m serious, I never give it any thought. It genuinely doesn’t occur to me. I think of myself, and who I am, and what my future holds, and I see all the ways I want to help. I see my city, and my career, and my friends and my family. And my family is bigger than just the Danvers. But if there are any kiddos in the mix, they’re not mine.” She smiled.

“I was pregnant once,” said Lena, softly.

Kara felt a pull of nausea, vertigo tugging her back against the bench. “Oh?”

Lena hummed a sound of low affirmation. “I wanted very badly to be smitten with my first boyfriend. I made a lot of earnest choices.”

Kara had no idea how she should respond. But she felt like she needed to say something. “Lena, I had no idea.”

The stillness on Lena’s face was upsetting in a way that Kara can’t articulate. But Lena kept talking. “I thought if I loved him, if I fucked him, I would be normal. Like everyone else.” She snorted. “’Normal.’ Pregnant at 13 - how old school hetereonormative, Lena. Very dark ages.” She balled up the wrapper of her sandwich and held it gripped in her hands. “I told Lillian about it, and she helped me take care of it.”

Kara made a sound of sympathy, but Lena’s hand went up. “It was the right choice at the time. I don’t regret it, and I was lucky I had the option, and that it was safe. But I was grossly irresponsible, and that was the consequence.” She met her friend’s eyes for the first time since she started speaking, and Lena’s smile was small but genuine. “It was the most human that Lillian ever treated me, actually. She’d never been so kind, before or since.”

Kara reached out and gripped her friend’s hand. “Wow. That’s… a lot, Lena. I’m sorry for prodding. I didn’t mean to bring anything up.”

Lena shook her head, gripped her hand back. “No, it’s fine. I’m dealing with it, or trying to, you know? Honestly, I’ve been working so hard to be the best, to be good, to prove I made the right choices. But being the best has meant a lot of sacrifice, and a lot of self-denial.” She blinked rapidly. “Again, I don’t regret it. But when I - when I think about my self, and what I want. I think, more than anything else, I want to figure out how to be content. How to be…” She swallowed hard, clearing her throat. “How to be kind to myself. Because that hasn’t been important. I never have felt that I deserve it. And when you think about it, even then? Even when it happened. What went wrong was I didn’t value myself enough. I didn’t pay attention to what I wanted. I did what I thought was expected of me, instead of listening to myself, because I was too scared of what I would hear.”

Lena stared at Kara then, who was sitting there dumbstruck. Lena laughed at her friend’s eyes welling with tears. “Oh sweetheart, I’m so sorry. There’s a lot of there there.”

“Yeah, there is, God!!” said Kara, laughing as the tears went rolling down her cheeks. “Can I hug you now?”

Lena felt dampness on her cheeks as well. “That would be nice.”

“For the record.” Kara’s voice is muffled against Lena’s hair. “You’re a crazy great person and I like you a lot and I want you to be stupidly happy.”

Lena can only laugh at that.

Kara pulled back, holding her friend by the shoulders. “Like, radiantly happy. Skipping. I want you to skip, Lena Luthor, out of such crazy happy self-love that that’s the only way you can express it.”

Lena’s laugh sounded snotty. “Skipping in heels this high sounds dangerous.”

“We’ll work you up to it.” Kara threaded her fingers through Lena’s. “We’ll get you some sneakers. Nothing says ‘I love myself’ like a comfy pair of sneakers.”

“Is it that easy?” asked Lena with mock skepticism.

“We can find out.” Kara started to stand, but seems to remember something, and plops back onto the bench, reaching into the bag. “After I watch you eat an irresponsible amount of cole slaw.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yell at me on tumblr, I'm posted up at bossbeth


End file.
